The police killing of an unarmed 18-year-old youth in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, has sparked mass outrage throughout the city and across the country. It is the latest in an epidemic of police murders in the US, including at least 18 people killed so far in the month of August.

The victim, Michael Brown, was on foot and en route to his grandmother’s house when he was accosted and shot by police. Witnesses say he was first shot while trying to avoid an altercation. When Brown then placed his hands above his head and dropped to his knees, police fired into his head and chest multiple times.

Dorion Johnson, a friend of Brown’s, says that the two were walking when a police officer confronted them, telling them to get off the street. After they continued walking, the police officer fired one shot. When they began to run away, “He shot again, and once my friend felt that shot, he turned around and put his hands in the air. He started to get down and the officer still approached with his weapon drawn and fired several more shots.” (See video).

Brown’s grandmother, Desuirea Harris, was waiting for her grandson at her home shortly after 2:00 p.m. After hearing noises from the street, she walked to the scene, where she found a stream of blood trailing away from her grandson’s lifeless body, which was left on the street for four hours.

Hundreds of Ferguson residents—two-thirds of whom are African American, like the victim—gathered at the scene of the shooting Saturday as news of the killing spread. …

Over the past three decades, there has been a dramatic increase in poverty in Ferguson and in the nearby towns of suburban St. Louis. In some of the areas surrounding Ferguson, poverty is as high as 40 percent. Unemployment and low-wage work predominate. The median household income in the district that borders the scene of the crime is only $14,390.

A report from the Missourians to End Poverty coalition released earlier this year shows that poverty in St. Louis itself increased from 27.2 percent in 2011 to 29.3 percent in 2014, amidst an intensifying assault on the working class throughout the country. Roughly one million Missourians are impoverished, out of a total population of just over 6 million.

In anticipation of social explosions, local police throughout the country are stockpiling weapons and armored vehicles used by US invasion forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are also mobilizing paramilitary SWAT teams for standard arrests. …

Michael Brown is the latest victim to be added to this list. Along with the vast growth in the prison system, domestic spying and the militarization of American society, police violence is part of the repressive response of the ruling class to the growing social anger and opposition that is building up within the United States.

TEAR GAS USED TO SUBDUE SECOND DAY OF MISSOURI RIOTS “Tension stayed high and raw Monday as the St. Louis region waited for answers in the fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager by a municipal police officer. In another day of fast-moving events, the FBI promised to investigate the killing of Michael Brown, 18, on Saturday by a Ferguson police officer. Brown’s parents called for an end to the violence while strongly disputing the police version of their son’s death. More than 1,000 people observed a moment of silence at a meeting called by the NAACP.” Two different accounts of the encounter that killed Brown are emerging. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]